He looks over my slacks and dress shirt, then takes in Maliki’s choice of sweatpants and tennis shoes.
“I’m giving her five more minutes to run and hide,” he tells us, a clock manifesting on the wall. “The moment the countdown ends,we hunt.”
Chapter 35
Sera
I haveno idea what I’m doing.
Everything feels unreal.
This labyrinth.
What just happened with Morpheus and Maliki.
And Hades, I think, remembering his presence. His dominance.His demands.
I… I don’t understand these sensations. This world.This pang in my lower belly.
Maliki met me in the lagoon, but all of that feels like it happened hours ago. Yet it was just in my mind, adream, one I woke up to…as I came.
I spin around, noting the somewhat familiar walls. I saw them when I first arrived. Examined them over the last few days. But there’s something different about them now.
Vines, I think.There are… vines.
They’re crawling all over the etched skulls, giving the path before melife.
I pause, staring at them. Wondering why they exist.Howthey exist.Hades, I realize, sensing his touch. His manifestation.
He tried to change his design.
Why?
I whirl again, staring back at the skull-shaped cabin. Somehow, I know he’s returned. It’s… it’s bizarre. Like I’m linked to him in a way that I haven’t felt before.
Part of me longs to return to him. To Morpheus. To Maliki.
Except my steps take me in the opposite direction, a foreign side of me needing torun.
It’s an intrinsic need that rings alarm bells in my mind. I… I know Hades said this would happen, that he built this labyrinth for this very reason. However, each step I take causes my stomach to churn that much more violently.
It doesn’t feel good.
Or exciting.
Or right.
Only there’s something strangely familiar about the wrongness flooding my being. Like I’ve experienced this pull before…
In my dream about Demeter?I wonder, frowning.
No.
It’s similar, yet not.
Is this just a response to my Omega soul? Being confused by my desire since I’m used to human needs, not Omega needs?
Maybe.
